English Literature
Contact Donovan Rees
British literature and history from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, with an emphasis on poetry, fiction, and drama.
We usually have a selection of literary works from the STC and Wing period (i.e. before 1701), and a broad range of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century fiction and poetry, particularly the Romantics. We also have a selection of historical manuscripts, prints and broadsides, and works in translation.
Among important works which have passed through our hands are the editor's presentation copy of Milton's Lycidas, Swift's Modest Proposal, the autograph draft of Byron's She walks in beauty, the autograph manuscript of Jane Austen's only play Sir Charles Grandison, Dickens’s copy of Vanity Fair, Trollope's classical library, and, over the years, some fifty Shakespeare First Folios.
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OVIDIUS Naso, Publius, and Pedro Sánchez de VIANA, translator and commentator.
Las transformaciones.
Valladolid, Diego Fernández de Córdoba, 1589.
First edition, a copy of notable provenance, of perhaps the most successful early Spanish translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, by Pedro Sánchez de Viana (c. 1545–1619), a physician by training, published along with his substantial commentary.
£6000
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OVID; [Philipp GUNDEL, editor].
Fastorum libri sex diligentissime recogniti. Addito calendario Romano venerandae vetustatis,...
[(Colophon:) Vienna, Hieronymus Vietor and Johann Singriener for Leonhard Alantsee, 3 October 1513.]
First and only editions, very rare, of two post-incunable Ovid recensions by Philipp Gundel, curiously bound in a strikingly archaic likely eighteenth-century binding.
£3500
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OWEN, John.
John Owen’s Epigrams for Prince Henry. The Text of the Presentation Manuscript in the Library of Trinity College...
Douglas, Isle of Man, published by Bernard Quaritch Ltd., 2012.
Printed here for the first time is the text of an autograph manuscript of the epigrams which John Owen presented to Prince Henry, eldest son of James VI of Scotland (I of England), on the occasion of his becoming Prince of Wales in 1610. The small quarto, preserved at Trinity College, Cambridge, is the...
£20
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PALMERSTON, Henry John Temple, third Viscount.
Signed undertaking to procure an Assignment of Term from the Executors of the Will...
22 July 1806.
Document signed by the young Palmerston, arising from the sale of his property at East Sheen, near Mortlake, to Thomas Bernard of Wimpole Street in 1805.
£675
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PARADIN, Guillaume.
Gulielmi Paradini Anchemani Epigrammata ...
Lyons, Ant. Gryphius, 1581.
First and only edition of this French historian’s poetry including verses about or addressed to Ronsard, Pontus de Tyard, Claude Rouillet, and the Lyons printers Sébastien and Antoine Gryphe, and Jean de Tournes.
£950
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PARNASSIUM (The)
: or Beauties of English Poetry. Selected from the Works of Blair, Philips, Young, Pope, Gray, Parnell … The...
London: Printed for W. Lane … [after 1776.]
A very scarce reissue by the enterprising William Lane, later of the Minerva Press, of A Collection of Modern Poems (London, J. James, 1762) – with a cancel title-page and a new frontispiece. The contents comprise the Love of Fame and The Last Day by Young, Gray’s Elegy, The...
£325
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PASQUIN, Anthony [i.e. John WILLIAMS].
The Eccentricities of John Edwin, Comedian. Collected from his Manuscripts, and enriched...
London, Printed for J. Strahan … [1791].
First edition of the earliest biography of the actor and singer John Edwin the elder (1749-1790), written by his friend, John Williams, journalist and author of the satirical collection of verse portraits The Children of Thespis (1786). Williams published both works under the pseudonym ‘Anthony Pasquin’...
£200
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[PATCH, Richard, defendant.]
The Trial of Richard Patch, for the wilful Murder of Mr. Isaac Blight, on the 23d of Sept. 1805, at...
London: Printed, by the express Appointment of the Sheriff, for Edward Jeffery ... Sold by John Walker ... H. D. Symonds ... Harris ... W....
First edition of this report of a famous trial (there was a rival version from the shorthand of Joseph and W. B. Gurney). Richard Patch (1770?-1806) was an unsuccessful farmer near Exeter who mortgaged his farms in 1803 and departed to London, where he entered the service of Isaac Blight, a ship-breaker...
£250
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PAZZI, Antonio de, and Torquato TASSO.
Stanze inedite di Antonio de Pazzi e di Torquato Tasso in biasimo ed in lode delle...
Venice, Picotti, 1810.
Scarce first edition of verses ‘in blame and in praise of women’ by Antonio de Pazzi and Torquato Tasso, edited by the eminent antiquary and librarian Jacopo Morelli (1745–1819) from a previously unpublished manuscript in the Biblioteca Marciana, Venice, and dedicated to Baron Antonio Mulazzani...
£200
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[PEACOCK, Thomas Love].
Gryll Grange. By the Author of ‘Headlong Hall’ …
London: Parker, Son, and Bourn … 1861
First edition in book form, following serialisation in Fraser’s, of Peacock’s final novel, perhaps his most witty and urbane. At a convivial house party at Gryll Grange the eccentric guests debate a whole range of mid-Victorian issues from the pretensions of science and the zeal of the reformers...
£400
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PEACOCK, Thomas Love.
Rhododaphne: or the Thessalian Spell. A Poem.
London, T. Hookham, Jun., and Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1818.
First edition of Peacock’s last and most ambitious poem, inspired by his enthusiasm for Greek poetry in the company of Shelley. A mythological narrative set in ancient Thessaly, Rhododaphne tells the story of the shepherd boy Anthemion, in love with the mortal girl Calliroë, and of the...
£750
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PELLISSON, [Paul].
Histoire de l’Academie Françoise par M. Pelisson [sic], nouvelle edition, augmentee des deux discours...
Amsterdam, Jean Frederic Bernard, 1717.
An attractive prize copy of Pellisson’s history of the Académie française, with a printed presentation label from the Jesuit college in the Occitan town of Carpentras, outside Avignon.
£150
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[PEMBERTON, Henry].
Observations on Poetry, especially the epic: occasioned by the late Poem upon Leonidas.
London: Printed by H. Woodfall. Sold by J. Brotherton … J. Nourse … and T. Dodsley … 1738.
First edition, a piece of literary criticism inspired by Richard Glover’s long poem Leonidas (1737), ‘a high-minded epic on the virtuous resistance by the Spartan king (perhaps an optimistic portrait of Frederick [Prince of Wales]) to the effeminate and treacherous Persian army’ (Oxford...
£325
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PEROTTI, Niccolò.
In hoc volumine habentur haec. Cornucopiae, sive linguae latinae co[m]mentarii diligentissime recogniti, atq[ue]...
Toscolano, Alessandro Paganini, April 1522.
Handsome edition of the masterful Cornucopiae of the Italian humanist and grammarian Niccolò Perotti (1429–1480), printed in Alessandro Paganini’s distinctive small italic type.
£950
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PERRY, William.
The Standard French and English pronouncing Dictionary; in two Parts …
London: Printed for Murray and Co. … J. Stockdale … and Scatcherd and Whitaker … 1795.
First and only edition of possibly the first French-English pronouncing dictionary.
£1350
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PERSIUS; [Thomas BREWSTER, translator].
The Satires of Persius translated into English Verse; with some occasional Notes;...
London, Printed for A. Millar, 1751.
Second edition, with the addition of Bayle’s life of Persius, with manuscript corrections.
£375
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PERUCCI, Francesco.
Pompe funebri di tutte le nationi del mondo, raccolte dale storie sagre et profane.
Verona, Francesco Rossi, 1639.
First edition of Perucci’s account of the funeral practices of Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas, extensively illustrated with engravings copied in reverse from Porcacchi’s 1574 Funerali antichi di diversi popoli, et nationi, inscribed by a Scottish antiquary and documented book collector....
£975
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PICKARD, Edward.
The Character and Reward of the good and faithful Servant. A Sermon preached at Crouched Friars, London, April...
London: Printed by Richard Hett, for J. Noon … J. Buckland … and C. Henderson … 1762.
First edition of a sermon that provides an extended biographical notice (pp. 25-34) of the Presbyterian theologian George Benson (1699-1762). Benson embarked on an industrious series of interpretative Biblical paraphrases after the manner of Locke in the 1730s. His most famous work, published after he...
£125
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PICKERING, Amelia.
The Sorrows of Werter: a Poem …
London: Printed for T. Cadell … 1786
First edition. Amelia Pickering’s ‘melancholy, contemplative poem’ (Todd) was one of a spate of works in English and German founded on Goethe’s novel, including poems by Charlotte Smith and Mary Robinson, both subscribers here. Pickering ‘gives to Charlotte a voice, if rather weakly moralistic,...
£1200
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PIEROTTI, A.
Il cervello e la difesa delle donne sestine giocose ... precedute da indirizzo, e dedica in vario metro.
Florence, N. Fabbrini, 1842.
First and only edition, very rare, of this misogynistic poem by the Florentine poet Pierotti, in which he pretends to explore the female brain with reference to Galen, accusing women of, for example, greed, theft, cunning, vanity, and irascibility. The second part is a somewhat patronising defense...
£375